Damn Hip-hop You’re Scary!

Hip-hop is pretty frightening when you think about it. Now before you fellow avid Hip-hop fans decide to gut me alive for bad-mouthing our beloved genre, please hear me out first. What I mean by this is that Hip-hop has a certain ‘dark side’ to it, a dark side in which is filled to the brim with horror-esque themes; I’m talking about, murder, rape, cannibalism, monster personas etc. Which is all good and fun if you’re into that sort of thing, but I find some of it to be scary in the literal sense. Now normally, I’d link you all to Eminem’s entire discography and make my case instantly, but that would be too easy; I prefer doing this the fun way.

Let’s see where to begin? Ah, I know, let’s take you back to the late 80s, where one of my favorite actors was actually a rapper; yes, I’m referring to Mr. Will Smith and his classic horror-themed hit, Nightmare On My Street:

This track is a nod to the classic horror movie series, Nightmare On Elm Street. In this song, the Fresh Prince depicts a fictitious story of his encounter with that baddie Freddy Krueger (you must be saxicolous if don’t know who that is). Will Smith’s voice and humor, actually makes this joint pretty goofy (he used to make a lot of things seem goofy actually). This track is a bit light-hearted but still scary, and it’s all thanks to – SPOILER ALERT: the twist at the end, when Freddy manages to murder Will’s pal, which ultimately really upped the scare level of this track.

(Yeah I know, I screwed up on the dashes; I got lazy, deal with it.)

Alright, let’s head to the next song, and this time we venture into a rather horrendous looking asylum, where two rappers (well, three technically speaking) are being contained. That’s right, I’m talking about Game’s song, Martain Vs. Goblins:

Did you see that asylum!? Cracked walls everywhere, tiles drenched with blood, and of course what mental institution would be complete without the resident creepy looking old lady (no offense to her, I’m sure that’s the makeup anyway). I guess the director was really going for a visually bone-chilling look, and he succeeded to some extent. Anyway, this Hip-hop joint is another typical one where rappers trash talk to each other, boast about their life, and claim to do things they’ll never do in reality, but with a horror-themed twist. Nonetheless, the personas of these rappers are interesting to hear from. You might be thinking, “So what makes this song scary anyway?” Well…

You got gory descriptive lyrics from Game – certainly not Tyler’s verse.

Alright, no more baby steps, this time we’re going to plunge into the depths of the Hip-hop horrorcore sub-genre, and what better place to start than with the artist Brotha Lynch Hung? Some might argue that he is the embodiment of the dark-side of Rap, the epitome of Hip-hops “evils”. Others might say something like, “STFU, ____ (A. Esham, B. Necro, C. Tech N9ne, D. Clown Dude [ICP] etc.) is waay bettah!!!” Either way, you can’t deny that Brotha Lynch has made his mark on the genre, and I’m going to examine his song, Look It’s A Dead Body:

Look it’s a song about dead bodies, okay? A song like this – a track about corpses of murdered victims, and not to mention eating those murdered victims too – is bound to be scary. Immediately, this song starts out with stating its own title followed by a really sinister laugh. I’m guessing Lynch got the Devil to do it, wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case (the dude probably has him on speed dial). If you couldn’t tell, Mr. Lynch made this track to prove one thing: the nigga aint soft. Spitting over an eerie beat – which btw is straight up ghastly with those ‘odd’ frightening sound effects in it that make your ears tremble – about the most obscure and murderous things; e.g, tawkin bout leavin Reese’s Pieces as his signature at the area he killed in. Telling his therapist about it; i.e, this guy goes hard on some real killa sh#t!

Yes, this song is on some real psycho sh#t. Like this is crazy scary, closest I’ve ever seen a song get to a horror movie. This track sticks to the textbook horrorcore subject matter; e.g, mass murder, psychotic personality, murdering, metalness, killing, vividly disturbing sexual experiences etc. Did I mention murder? I think you get the idea. I have to give props where props is due though, and say this song is pretty well-crafted. Em is an excellent lyricist, and the dude has a gift with words. Anyhow, the point is this song is spine-chillingly scary. With lines like

You’re walking down a horror corridor
It’s almost four in the morning and you’re in a nightmare, it’s horrible
Right there’s the coroner, waiting for ya
To turn the corner so he can corner ya, you’re a goner, he’s onto ya
Out the corner of his cornea, he just saw ya run
All ya want is to rest cause you can’t run anymore, you’re done

you can Em doe a good job in painting vivid images in your head as you listen. He does a nice job in portraying a psychopath, as you really feel the essence of a true deviant as he spits his lines.

In conclusion, Hip-hop can get pretty scary, and tends to dive into very controversial topics. But I guess, artist are just being artist, and expressing themselves on how they see fit. Anyway guys, what do ya’ll think? Do you like the ‘dark side’ of Hip-hop? Do you dislike it? Do you not care for it? Tell me in the comments below, and if you do be sure to leave me your favorite scary track(s). Catch you all later. Peace.

I think the difference between the Horrorcore sub-genre and a song like ‘Dance With The Devil’ is that Tech seems to feel remorse over the subject (as we know he admits to changing a few details). And the setting is the hood, not some batshit-crazy mental asylum. In a typical hood, it is going to be fucked up, with killers and mafiosos and people that you just plain don’t want to mess with, and pretty much every artist who is from there will show a lot of this in their songs.

The way I see that is, just because of the setting – as well as the way ‘those’ types of songs go (I’m talking songs about hood issues here) – they have a message to offer you, a moral to the story if you will. They aim to teach a lesson to younger people from similar areas and not just to use shock tactics to entertain.

In all the songs mentioned by OP, there really isn’t a moral given.

As for the Horrorcore sub-genre, now, I’m not a hippy or anything, but I do believe in positive and negative energy, and I really just don’t feel that genre because of what it represents and the bad vibes I’ll take off it if I listen to it.